Open Collections

Kwan, Mikayla

University of British Columbia

“I Enjoy Being a (Asian North American) Girl”: The Evolution of Asianness in North American Musical Theatre traces how Asian representations in North American musical theatre have evolved from the 1800s to present day through historical contexts of immigration and labor. I argue that while constructions of Asianness in North American musical theatre and its early forms created a limiting image of the Asian grounded in historical stereotypes, contemporary musical theatre has responded by expanding the possibilities for Asian representation as grounded in multiplicity. I analyze the presence of Asian stereotypes such as the China Doll, the Chinese Coolie, the Model Minority, and the Dragon Lady in well-known musicals such as Anything Goes (1934), On The Town (1944), The King and I (1951), Flower Drum Song (1958 and 2002), and Miss Saigon (1991 and 2017). I examine casting in specific Canadian musical theatre productions such as Musical Stage Company’s Next To Normal (2019), The Globe Theatre’s The Little Mermaid (2017), and the Confederation Centre’s Anne of Green Gables: The Musical (2022). I investigate representations of Asianness in new Asian Canadian musicals Soft Magical Tofu Boys (2024) and MEAT (2023). I employ theoretical frameworks such as José Esteban Muñoz’s disidentifications, Anne Anlin Cheng’s ornamentalism, and Karen Shimakawa’s abjection to explore how Asian stereotypes emerged through repetition and how they function both in society and on-stage. I employ interviews conducted with Asian Canadian musical theatre artists such as Aaron Jan, Damon Bradley Jang, Genny Sermonia, Julio Fuentes, Kelsey Verzotti, Kevin Wong, Kimberly-Ann Truong, Nam Nguyen, Rosie Simon, and Stephanie Sy, in order to gauge their experiences and understandings of Asianness’s evolution in musical theatre. Ultimately, this thesis insists upon the importance of unfolding the historical contexts that frame Asians in North America on and off stage in order to understand the emergence of stereotypes, as well as how to subvert, build upon, and evolve away from them and toward more expansive, heterogenous, and life-giving renderings. I aim to position my work as a vehicle that can impact both musical theatre creation and education, with a specific focus on how Asian experiences are represented.

Text

2025-07-14

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/91600

Theatre

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/